Duet
by aphrab
Summary: The story depicts Sully's release of sorrow over Hannah's death after the birth of Katie.


**Duet**

by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Sully's grin said it all. "It's a girl!"

The too-soon birth of his and Michaela's first child was an awesome, terrifying surprise. In the Colorado woods on an overcast June morning, Michaela's water broke before she and Sully could return to town by wagon. There was no choice but for the first-time mother to undergo labor and childbirth in the wild. Together, without help and without complications, husband and wife managed to deliver their little girl in the shade of an oak.

The birthing was fast and arduous on the parents, who had anticipated two more weeks before the onset of labor. At the first pelvic contraction, Sully had feared for Michaela. He couldn't bear to watch her suffer without a blanket or pillow to cushion her from the cold, rocky ground. He panicked at the thought of losing his heartsong.

To reassure her, he set a stoic face and began his abrupt apprenticeship in midwifery. "Tell me what to do," he ordered. "Do I need somethin from your bag? Some instruments? Pain medicine?"

Michaela grasped his hand and gritted her teeth.

He fussed around, trying to look competent. "You warm enough? Need a fire? A drink of water?"

Shaking her head, Michaela could only groan and hunch forward, her mouth shaped into a tortured O. "Sully," she croaked. "I can't do this. I can't. I can't."

"Yes you can," he coaxed.

"It's too soon," she whimpered.

To distract her, he demanded, "Hold my hands. Concentrate, Michaela. Breathe easy."

Recovering from the hasty, makeshift setting of a broken ankle, the soon-to-be father comforted his wife. Between spasms, she monitored the baby's heartbeat with her stethoscope. Sully cringed through worsening grips of her torso and coached her during the final hard strains. "It's comin. Keep pushin."

"It's too hard," she screamed upward into the sheltering leaves. "Help me, Sully!"

He stated with just-pretend expertise, "You're doin fine. The head's almost out."

With clamps and scissors from her medical bag, he loosened and snipped the umbilical cord to speed up the delivery. "I see the eyes, the chin" he exulted. Holding his breath, he delighted in the emergence of a baby girl, Katherine Elizabeth Sully.

"We've got a daughter!" he exulted, enfolding the little one in a receiving blanket. To his relief, the tiny form was unmarked and Michaela suffered no tearing or heavy bleeding.

"Check her mouth," Michaela gasped with eyes shut and body limp from exertion. "Is she breathing evenly?"

At the end of his birthing trial, Sully was thrilled to see the infant's eyes open and her lungs emitting a stout cry. "Michaela, she's strong. She's perfect!"

Michaela rebounded from pain and fatigue and reached out to snuggle their newborn. "Hello, sweet one. Welcome to the world," Michaela crooned. "We've been waiting for you."

"Hello, baby girl," the exultant father whispered.

Michaela pulled the tiny girl toward her breast and tucked the blanket more securely around her limbs. Still slick with birthing tissue, Katie suckled briefly before fading into a peaceful drowse in her mother's arms.

Without disturbing the baby, Michaela peeled back the cotton folds to conduct a brief examination of her umbilicus and to search for birthmarks.

"Oh, Sully, you're right," she smiled at him, "Katie is just perfect."

"You sure?" he prompted, worried that he might have bruised his new daughter.

Tearing herself away from the sleepy child, she kissed him gratefully. "You did a great job. You're hired!"

Still grinning, Sully replied, "What a morning!" He plunked down by Michaela and confessed, "I wasn't meant to be a midwife. My knees are still wobbly."

"What about my knees?" she taunted. "You had the easy part."

Exuberant in the wake of terror, he chortled, "Don't ever do that to me again!"

"Oh? I thought she was the result of what you did to me," Michaela joked. Her high spirits restored his confidence that she had made it through childbirth unharmed.

Sully delivered the afterbirth and buried it Cheyenne style with thanksgiving chants to the earth mother. He drained and coiled the umbilical cord and tucked it into his buckskin medicine bag. With heated water from the creek, he returned to help Michaela bathe their firstborn before transporting her toward Colorado Springs.

"Is that too hot?" he mused.

Michaela dropped a small stream on the back of her hand. "Just about right. Maybe a bit more cold."

The warm water awakened Katie, causing her to look around and suckle her fingers.

"Look, Sully. She likes bathing." Michaela delighted in her child's first adventure.

Clean and tucked into the thin blanket and wrapped in her father's fringed buckskin jacket, Katie made a first expedition in the family wagon. Her cloudy blue eyes scanned the passing scene with a cool, unfocused nonchalance.

In town, friends and family were startled by the unexpected arrival and marveled at Sully's unruffled account of the morning's work: "It was wonderful, but I don't ever want to go through that again." The new mother, still enthralled with Katie, had little to say, but she cast a knowing look at Dorothy, who concealed laughter.

"I'm glad you're all well. What a little beauty she is!" Dorothy reached a fingertip toward Katie's pink cheek. "I'm going to love being her Auntie Dorothy. Brings back memories." She put a comforting hand on her best friend's arm. "Are you okay, Michaela?"

Michaela's blissful smile assured Dorothy that the worst of pregnancy and delivery were ended. "I can't wait to show the children their new sister. They'll love her."

"Not bad, Sully," Mayor Slicker smirked. "You did good. We want to hear your advice to expectant fathers."

Sully's counsel was brief: "If you're nine months pregnant, stay out of the woods."

Loren and Hank laughed at Sully's expense and swapped man-talk. Loren pretended to foretell the future. "I can see it now—midwifery classes at the clinic with Sully teachin the course."

Hank smirked. "I may sign up my girls and start a sideline—Hank's bar and birthin parlor."

On the Sully family's arrival at the homestead, the children rushed down the steps toward the bundled baby. Michaela reached down from the wagon. "Here's Katie, Colleen—a baby sister just to even things out."

"Oh, Ma! She's beautiful!" While Colleen cooed and admired Katie at close range, Brian and Matthew peered over her shoulder and waited their turn to nestle the newcomer.

"Ma, did she really get borned in the woods?" Brian asked. "Weren't you scared?"

"Your ma was brave, Brian," Sully attested. "I was the nervous one."

"Brian!" Matthew nudged him. "Move over so I can see her." The two tussled for the front row. "Let's show her around."

Sully lifted his wife from the wagon, supporting her awkward stretch to the ground. "Watch your step." With mock midwifely authority, he teased, "New mothers have to be extra careful."

"I'm fine," she confided. "Just a little slow." He sensed that Michaela was weak and definitely needed time to recuperate. Judging by his own weariness, so did he. "Let's get you both to bed," he urged.

"You look like you could use a nap, too," Michaela smiled, eager to spend some time as a threesome in their upstairs hideaway.

In the greatroom, everybody had a turn at cuddling the winsome baby and at looking for family resemblances.

"Ma," Brian exulted, "there's not much hair, but she's got blue eyes."

"Oh, Brian," Colleen snickered, "All babies have blue eyes. And she'll soon grow lots of hair."

Stung by his know-it-all sister, Brian retorted, "How would you know? How many babies have you seen?"

"Lots more than you."

In the tit-for-tat between Brian and Colleen, Katie's fist clutched at the air in front of her face as she familiarized herself with home and admirers. Wolf made a preliminary sniff at the little girl who would share his space.

The father had no doubt who his daughter looked like. "She has Michaela's smile and soft skin."

Michaela accepted the compliment, but insisted, "The blue eyes are all yours."

The baby-holding session ended as Katie grew restless at all the handling from her two brothers. Sully took charge once more. "She's gettin fretful and wiggly," he observed. "Better leave her be. It's been a long mornin."

The whimpers were almost polite—discreet reminders that Katie needed milk and a nap. Her subdued, ladylike complaints surprised Sully.

"Mighty small cry from a female Quinn," he noted. "I expected lots worse."

"Humph," Michaela snorted. "Just you wait."

"That's enough for today," she alerted her older children. "I must have a bath and some rest and so must Katie. She's ready for her first full feeding and a long sleep." Concealing her own needs, Michaela leaned heavily on Sully.

Leaving the baby in Colleen's care, Sully eased his wife up the stairs to their room and folded back the quilted bedcover.

"There," he said. "Home at last. You all right?"

"I feel so clammy," she complained, examining skirts soaked in birthing fluid. "I need a good wash." Together, they pulled her bedraggled dress and petticoats out of the way.

Sully glided a damp cloth over her torso and limbs to remove the sweat from a rigorous labor. "Lift up," he ordered, reaching from underarms around her back.

"Wonderful," she sighed. "I'm exhausted."

He inspected minimal bleeding and the beginnings of milk flow from her breasts. "Need some willow bark tea for pain?"

"I don't think I should. I don't want any painkillers to spoil my milk," she replied. "Whatever goes into me affects the baby, too."

"I hadn't thought of that," he noted. He considered how medicines would dose a breastfed baby as well as her mother. After a brief toweling, he slipped a batiste nightgown over Michaela's head and arms. He fussed over the coverlet and pillows until she settled in.

"Much better," she sighed, letting her bruised backside and thighs sink into her usual spot in the bed. Her abdomen ached; her lower back, wrenched by pelvic agonies during labor, felt black and blue from contortions on the roots protruding under the oak tree. "I wish Katie had arrived here or at the clinic instead of in the woods."

"Me too" Sully tucked in her feet and kissed her fingertips and the palms of her hands.

"What's that for?" she smiled, ruffling his hair.

"Thanks for our baby girl," he whispered, his lips nuzzling her ear. He couldn't find words to say how relieved he was for the safe delivery and how proud he was to be Katie's father.

With a wry smile, Michaela commented, "You're welcome, but I hope I produce any future Sully children in more amenable surroundings."

The new father nodded silently his intent to see that no more of his offspring arrived in the wild without proper midwifing from someone with experience.

"We'll plan better for our next ten children," he teased.

Michaela collapsed in a mock faint at the thought of ten more pregnancies.

A knock drew their attention.

"Here, Ma," Colleen interrupted. "I think Katie's ready for you." Colleen shifted her hours-old sister into her mother's arms and left a kiss on the blond fuzzy head. "She's so sweet. I wish I could help feed her."

"I'm afraid that's my job alone for the next year or two," Michaela laughed. "That's how nature designed it."

"You can help later," Sully predicted. "You can spoon in the first applesauce and cook her first oatmeal. And I'm sure Brian will demand his turn feedin."

"Bye, little sister." Colleen waved and tiptoed out, leaving Katie and her parents their privacy.

Michaela had instructed numerous women on the best way to bring down milk for the initial nursing, but she was overwhelmed by her body's reaction to the browsing and rooting of a hungry infant. Opening buttons, she nudged her nipple into Katie's mouth, then leaned forward slightly to ensure a steady flow.

"Look at her, Sully. She knows exactly what she wants."

The tip of a pink tongue protruded from wrinkled lips; fists explored Michaela's chest.

"Smart girl," Sully smiled. "I like demandin women."

Michaela's body obeyed on cue. A gentle massage to the firm breast got the stream off to a strong surge that stimulated the tiny jaws.

"How do you know how much she's gettin?" Sully asked as he observed his first breastfeeding up close.

Michaela was ready with a sensible answer: "As the breast softens, her tummy will round out with milk." Sully leaned forward for a touch on Katie's midriff. "See? She's getting nourishment."

Michaela continued, "When I shift her to the right side, she will take the nipple eagerly if she's still hungry." Sully nodded at the practical logic of motherhood.

As the duo relaxed into their first mealtime together, Sully sat mesmerized on the edge of the bed taking in the sweetness of Katie's pose against Michaela's breast and arm.

"She seems peaceable once she gets what she wants," he observed. The thought reminded him of Michaela in her more disgruntled moments. "I think she inherited that from her ma." He favored Michaela with a wicked grin.

She retorted, "Remind me in years to come when you're spoiling her with more than she needs."

Entranced with her daughter, Michaela concentrated on the small hand that flailed upward during nursing. From flaxen eyelashes to slender feet, Katie was feminine in every way.

"Look, Sully. She has rosy, tapered fingertips and petite, even nails, just like they were manicured." Leaning back contentedly, she sighed, "We're so lucky to have a healthy baby."

"I think she's a keeper," Sully chuckled with paternal pride.

Shortly, the strong pull on Michael's breast eased as Katie sank into repose. Blue eyes fluttered shut; tiny hands lay at rest on the white receiving blanket. Michaela, too, lapsed into slumber, her body eager for recovery after the muscular waves that pushed Katie into her father's hands.

Unfamiliar with parenting a newborn, Sully wasn't certain of his role at this point. To ensure Michaela's rest, he lifted Katie and crept to the rocker as smoothly as a splinted ankle would allow. The child slept on without a ripple.

His free hand stroked lightly on a downy ear and rested on her neck. Her skin felt warm and feathery to the touch. Beguiled by femininity, he murmured, "You feel nice, just like your ma."

The baby stirred and wrinkled her forehead. "Well, Kates," he began, "I'm your pa." He spoke the word "pa" as though he expected her to repeat it.

He leaned back and marveled at how lightweight she was. "You're even smaller than Wolf when I found him in the woods." Sully realized he should keep that thought to himself. Michaela might not want her daughter compared to a wild animal, even one as dear to them as Wolf.

Katie squirmed and kicked at the blanket, causing him some alarm. "What's troublin you?" he asked, more to himself than to Katie. "Did I squeeze too tight?"

He checked her diaper and found it wet. "We can fix this without your ma's help." Reaching out to the clothing chest, he slid a replacement from the stack that Katie's Aunt Rebecca in Boston had hemmed and monogrammed in white silk floss with a capital S.

Balancing the baby on his knees, he went to work. "I'm not sure about this, Kates," he admitted as he attempted to imitate the deft wrap that Michaela had accomplished before their ride to town.

"Hold still," he advised as he guided pins into place. He decided that his style of diapering was not bad for a first try. "There. All dry."

Contented again, Katie snuggled into the crook of her father's arm and sighed. Eyelashes feathered shut, casting a fragile shadow on her cheek.

"Back to sleep," he whispered. "Safe and warm."

Sully had never felt so blessed, so complete. He admired every curve and dimple of her satiny skin, every evidence that Katie would grow up as girlish and graceful as Michaela. He hoped as well for some of Brian's optimism and Colleen's poise and intellect in the mix. And a touch of Matthew's loyalty and good sense.

The serene afternoon set Sully to musing on past griefs—the stillbirth of Hannah, his first child, and the terrifying moans and ministrations that preceded his first wife's death in labor.

He could still hear her pleas, "Sully. Help me! I'm so afraid! Don't leave me!"

The sight of Abagail in torment engulfed him with guilt that he had inflicted an avoidable early passing. When the straining and shrieking ended with a sudden lull, he recalled the ominous heart-sickness. Ambivalent toward his brief fatherhood, he had reached for the small bundle that the midwife, Charlotte Cooper, swaddled.

"She's gone, Sully," Charlotte had apologized. "I didn't get her in time."

He relived the unreality of his infant daughter, a limp, cooling corpse. His first thought was how much she looked like Abagail.

Old nightmares of neighbor women buttoning a blue winter dress and smoothing a prim lace collar over the body in the coffin concluded with the arranging of long black curls about Abagail's emotionless face. Charlotte tucked little Hannah, naked and freshly washed, into a blanket and positioned her near her mother's heart.

"She looks sweet, Sully," Charlotte spoke up with false cheer. "She would have been a beauty, just like her ma."

Sully was too numb to reply. He clutched at Abagail's wedding band in his pocket.

Before the funeral, the widower felt oddly displaced. He expected his dead wife and babe to look serene and dear, but there was nothing pretty about their stillness. As their skin faded to pale marble, he forced himself to gaze at his family once more before the Reverend Johnson closed the coffin lid and pronounced, "In sure and certain hope of eternal reward and a reunion in heaven."

Sully realized that nothing was certain in this life. A sprinkle of dust and a chorus of Amens completed the ritual. All too soon, his loved ones passed forever into the ground at the community cemetery. He sank to his knees in the still churchyard. He had never felt so alone.

Once havoc seized his household, the yearning for peace skewered his soul. An unbearable ache showed no signs of healing. Daily walks past two grave markers naming Abagail Sully and Hannah Sully pierced his heart with reminders that the cabin lay empty and his household reduced from three to one in a single moment.

He ate nothing. He slept fitfully or not at all. Walks into the wilderness reduced his tie with townspeople. A full retreat to the forest ended the demands on him to accept gracious good wishes and baskets of berry pies, warm sourdough bread, and crocks of apple butter left at his door. He sank into a wrenching solitude that cried out for comfort. Without the rescue of Cloud Dancing, the Cheyenne medicine man, Sully wondered how he would have survived the winter in the Colorado Rockies.

Looking up at his little girl and sleeping wife, Sully shook away the cobwebs of his first marriage and bereavement. God had given him another chance, another baby girl to set his life on a normal course. Cloud Dancing was right about suffering: "The spirits are merciful."

"Sully?" Michaela murmured, stirring on her pillow. "Is the baby sleeping?"

"Um-hm," he whispered.

She stretched agreeably and gestured at the quiet rocking of father and daughter by the hearth. "You two are awfully quiet. What are you doing?"

"Gettin acquainted," he whispered. "I'm just watchin her nappin."

He found four small toes exposed and tucked them back into a fold of the wooly blanket that Grandma Elizabeth had knitted and edged in mitered white satin.

He remarked with awe, "This little girl is already loved from Colorado all the way to Boston."

Alert and rested after the nap, Michaela gathered her unruly hair in a plain ribbon and repositioned herself on the pillow.

"My turn," she demanded, reaching both arms for Katie.

"I kinda like how warm and soft she feels on my lap," Sully replied as he reluctantly surrendered the baby to his wife.

"She's still dry," Michaela noticed. "That's surprising after so much milk."

Sully boasted, "I changed her." He awaited praise for his fatherly self-sufficiency.

"That's an interesting twist on diapering. Most unusual," Michaela commented while checking Katie for pin pricks. She found no cloth lumps that might chafe her thighs.

Sully retorted, "I thought I did a pretty good job, considerin."

"Well, not bad," she mused.

He took in his wife's handling of so small a being and had to admit that she had more confidence in parenting. "But I'm glad you've got plenty of experience at baby doctorin."

In the midst of settling in, Michaela looked around as though searching for something.

"Do you two want anythin?" he pressed, having no idea of what might be lacking to mother and child.

Her professional consciousness always tuned to a daily schedule, Michaela prodded Sully toward practical matters.

"I would like some tea and a bit of lunch. I have to eat and drink on a regular schedule to keep up my own strength and to produce nourishing milk for Katie." Her hand fluffed up the silky yellow down that tufted the back of Katie's head. "Did Colleen serve you already?"

With no thought to his own needs, Sully had lodged in a silent world of sleeping wife and baby. "No lunch yet. I'll check in the kitchen and bring up a tray."

On the way out the door, he leaned back for another glimpse of Katie reclining on her mother's lap. He heard Michaela crooning the first line of "All Through the Night," a lullaby his mother had hummed to his little brother Jock. Michaela sang,

_Soft the drowsy hours are creeping; _

_Hill and dale in slumber sleeping._

The last line spun out to a tender conclusion:

_Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee _

_All through the night._

After a harrowing morning, the words promised peace.

On return up the stairs, Sully followed Colleen.

"Here, Ma. I cooked something easy to digest." She parceled out two plates of buttered peas and carrots along with a ladle of savory chicken and dumplings in each soup bowl. She finished off the servings with a sprinkle of parsley and rosemary fresh from their garden.

"Looks good, Colleen," Michaela complimented her able daughter. While Sully sat immobile in the rocker, the new mother ate daintily and sipped chamomile tea, an age-old soother of breastfeeding women.

Gazing with wifely adoration, she smiled at the man who had sired, delivered, rocked, and diapered their babe.

"You're not eating. You should be starving after breaking your ankle and superintending that long labor and delivery in the woods."

Already, the memory was morphing into family legend.

Sully flushed, "It wasn't that it was so long. It was hard on my hands." He held up both palms, which her nails indented during labor.

"Oh, sorry." She confessed, "I was so intent on pushing and panting I didn't realize I was clawing you."

Michaela examined the angry red half-moons and found that a few had broken the skin. With wifely gratitude, she kissed his wounds and dabbed on a fragrant mint salve for chafed hands and lips that she kept by the bed.

"There," she concluded. "That should soothe those gashes and keep them from festering."

"I feel better already," he noted, flexing his fingers. He leaned forward to brush her lips and stroke her cheeks, which were beginning to regain their color. "Fine doctorin."

"Why, thank you, sir. I like having satisfied patients, especially new fathers," she teased.

Sully's eyes strayed to the baby. "She looks just like you, don't you think?"

He smiled self-consciously and dipped his fork into the cooling chicken for a distracted bite. He flushed at the memory of their union and Katie's conception, "I can't stop wonderin how you and me made that little girl."

"She's made out of love," Michaela beamed. "She's precious and not blemished at all by an abrupt arrival two weeks early." She commented, "Hard labor didn't damage her in any way." As an afterthought, she noted, "I'm glad you didn't need forceps."

Sully shuddered inwardly at the image of tugging so tiny a being from the birth canal with metal paddles.

Returning to the professional side, Michaela mused, "I think I was wrong about the conception and due date."

"Is she big enough?" Sully questioned.

To himself, he wondered how anything so little could be ready for life. To spare his wife, he concealed doubts about their petite Katie. He planned a secret consultation with Cloud Dancing, who would conduct his own examination and tell Sully the truth about the baby's chances.

Michaela interpreted his private thoughts.

"Stop worrying." She put her ear to Katie's back and listened to steady heartbeat and respiration. Nothing was amiss with her development, reflexes, or stamina.

"She's quite normal—about six pounds. Just the right size for a full-term infant and as alert as any newborn I've ever examined."

With the fork in her free hand, Michaela pushed her peas and carrots around the plate before giving up on lunch. "I'm not as hungry as I thought I was." Like Sully, her eyes saw only the long-awaited babe, who snoozed on in Michaela's arms without a stir.

Sully stacked the plates on the tray and set them outside the door. In the quiet of their room, he slid into his side of the bed to secure mother and child against his chest.

"She's pursin her lips and flickin her eyelashes. What does she want?"

"I think she's ready for another nursing," Michaela explained. "Sometimes little ones fall asleep before they satisfy their hunger." The process began once more, this time with Katie moving right on target for her second feeding.

Sully felt an unusual buoyance—a surge of joy in his family. For over two years, he had grieved nearly every waking moment and into the night at the abrupt passing of Abagail and Hannah. For three years, Michaela had been his heartsong.

Now he felt a new little flirt stealing into her place.

"Another heartsong!" he confided to himself. "Only the luckiest man gets two."


End file.
